Campus-Wide Events | Brown-Bag Series

Once each month during the academic year, the CWSP holds an informal brown-bag lunch discussion from noon to 1 p.m. Typically, a box lunch is provided to the first ten participants who sign up. Most sessions showcase the work of the previous year's participants in the CWSP Faculty Seminar, who, in pairs, present the results of their course improvements and offer instructional strategies that other faculty can adopt in their instruction. Other sessions focus on topics of general interest to faculty, including the results of research that has implications for instruction.

Upcoming Brown Bag Events:

Engaging Students Through Applied Communication Projects

Lisa Tichavsky, a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, will present a group project designed to help students develop public speaking skills through a "real-life" simulation. Modeled after the practices of grant work at private research facilities, the assignment requires students to apply course theories to a real-world problem and present their research and solution. Groups present in the style of a professional conference, and they work collaboratively to prepare and coach each other for formal presentations. The components and mechanics of the assignment may be used in a variety of disciplines and assignments.

Dr. Jason Swarts, Associate Professor of English, will present a lesson on teaching students to use instructional videos. After teaching his own graduate students about different modes of communication, their unique affordances for communication, and their role in producing meaning, they are asked to produce a short video. Students are taught about storyboarding and script writing, and they also learn technical details about producing good audio and video. Such an activity is readily adaptable to undergraduate courses across the disciplines.